An acknowledgment mechanism between a transmitter and a receiver is often required for ensuring reliability of a communication link between the transmitter and the receiver. That is, when the receiver receives frames comprising bytes of data transmitted by the transmitter, the receiver transmits an acknowledgment message to the transmitter, acknowledging the reception of the frames. However, transmission of acknowledgment messages requires additional resources and reduces throughput of the communication link which deters communication systems from implementing the acknowledgment mechanism, thereby compromising the quality of the communication link. A communication standard, for example, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard implements a frame acknowledgment and retransmission mechanism based on a required quality of service (QoS). Acknowledgment messages are transmitted only if a high QoS is required. Hence, there is a need for an efficient acknowledgment mechanism that requires a decreased number of bytes for acknowledging the reception of frames and which can therefore be used to ensure reliability in the communication link at all times regardless of the required QoS.
The IEEE 802.11n standard uses an acknowledgment message with a compressed block acknowledgment (BA) bitmap, where the maximum number of frames that can be acknowledged by the acknowledgment message is equal to the length, in number of bits, of the compressed BA bitmap. For example, if the length of the compressed BA bitmap is 64 bits, the maximum number of frames that can be acknowledged is 64 frames. This standard, therefore, requires the receiver to transmit multiple acknowledgment messages to the transmitter to completely acknowledge the reception of the frames from the transmitter. For a more effective usage of the available bandwidth, there is a need for an acknowledgment mechanism that acknowledges an increased number of frames in a single acknowledgment message, thereby reducing the number of acknowledgment messages required for the acknowledgment.
Hence, there is a long felt but unresolved need for a method and system that acknowledges an increased number of frames in a single acknowledgment message using a few bytes for effectively utilizing the available bandwidth, and that ensures backward compatibility.